it's in with the new around the globe spectacular celebrations more straight to america we show you the highlights. r.t. also looks at the legacy of the twenty twelve that could have been if things had turned out differently exposed some of the challenges the wild might face in the coming months. and eleventh hour deal looks set to pull america from the edge of the fiscal cliff the tax hikes for millions of americans the time being at least.

focusing live from moscow this is very happy new year. well twenty thirteen has made it around the globe we're going to re have fireworks performances and cheering crowds let's take a look at how the world has been parting new zealand was among the first to usher in twenty thirty rounds the harbor in oakland joy the fireworks exploding over the city's sky tower australia joined the festivities shortly after with almost two million people gathering to see the standard jaw dropping fireworks from harbor bridge as the clock struck midnight on new year continued its triumphant march through asia with one of the most spectacular shows unveiling in hong kong where count down to twenty thirteen common eight light extravaganza on the land and in the sky europe then picked up the holiday torch. hosting one of the world's largest open air parties at the brandenburg gate where the u.k.

pulled out all the stops for the mesmerizing fireworks display in the heart of the camp that the number. and across the atlantic million spectators december on new york's iconic times square to celebrate the event with the traditional drop of the crystal ball. officially kicked off with the traditional trial of the country's main clock on one of the kremlin's towers revelers from across russia came to red square to watch the crowning moment of our works about the iconic battles cathedral. or there were mixed emotions regarding the year that's past sad to see it end but many more hopeful that twenty thirteen will see better times. takes in the world that could have been. twenty twelve was certainly full of disappointing headlines hope fueled by the arab spring turned into the turmoil of

the arab autumn the war in syria claimed countless lives and a fiscal crisis all the european union torn apart at its very seams and the problems facing our world today certainly don't offer themselves up to an easy fix what if things had turned out differently what if opportunities were actually a pawn instead of missed well here's our look at the twenty twelve headlines that could have been. diplomacy succeeds in syria and ending bloody conflict. instead this was the image of syria the world saw increasingly violent clashes between government forces and the opposition had claimed more than forty thousand lives efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution fall flat because divisions ripped apart both the country and the international community hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring states where many have found conditions to be dismal meanwhile syria's war is threatening to spill over its borders as tensions escalate within and in the

region. of told me to try and sanction slashed. to accept. u.s. rules to restrict foreign. mideast peace with israel links to state whose probably story. yet this was their reality israel's assault on palestinian militants in gaza israel's anti-missile shield repelled the most attacks on its territory but a strike claimed the lives of more than one hundred sixty palestinians many of them civilians despite harsh condemnation from many in the international community the war and israel's subsequent decision to construct three thousand new settlements effectively slammed the door shut to any prospects of peace people power moment gives. step aside and let a democracy here. get lost get my notorious kuantan of my prison permanently shot. euro zone cuts the cuts and lifts austerity. but the news of austerity only

tightened as deep public sector cuts brought thousands of angry demonstrators to the streets of greece spain italy and portugal. the worst economic crisis of a generation has battered the european union's very foundations exacerbating tensions between member states with some regions now desperately wanting out i grew up in a europe that was divided from east to west going to europe that is divided from old to self and never at any point in the history of this union has there been more discord of rank that we covered. corporate cash banned from the campaign coffers as part of the us political clique. no heel for u.k. british quit european union. found a duty in the solyndra pointed un free speech and. instead a song remains a political refugee at ecuador's london embassy where he's been granted asylum he

continues to fight extradition to sweden over alleged sex crimes charges that he says are politically motivated and tied to his work in leaking international government secrets. the power of people speaking up and resisting together terrifies corrupt democratic power so much so that ordinary people here in the west and the enemy of governments an enemy to be watched and enemy to be controlled and to be impoverished true democracy is not the white house true democracy is not. true democracy is the resistance of people with the truth against lies from to right here in london. everyday ordinary people teach us that democracy is free speech and just sent. from heretics to hero american whistleblower bradley manning finally free. droning on the nations

agree to end iraq of remote control. egypt's arab spring sees democracy defeat hardline islam as. the reality on the ground was anything but egyptian president mohamed morsi is fouled like power grab unleashed fury and frenzy street battles and a fast track to constitutional overhaul referendum left a bitter opposition eager for change for them two thousand and twelve saw the arab spring transformed into an egyptian nightmare had a revolution to get rid of a tyrant to dictators. in the order to that we made elections the revolution and elections to choose someone to the present us turned out that this guy is also a tyrant and he has had lines may have been the stuff of imagination but that's the of twenty thirteen can bring any of them to life. r.t.

moscow. where celebrations on capitol hill were delayed as lawmakers use the early hours of twenty thirteen to strike a crucial deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff the senate venture agreed to hold to the proposed tax hike which would have affected virtually every american worker the deal still has to go before the house of representatives later on tuesday night is economics expert max kaiser told us that it's still too early to pop the champagne. some people call him the crazy kaiser mr marks joining us good to see you max. two thousand and two thousand and thirteen a big happy new year to you there it's a really kevin and a nice to hear you know you never tell you what made you always go for the juggler with all the guests you have on the kaiser report is there anyone at this point you already are going up with two thousand and thirteen any dictums in the future absolutely we're going after jamie diamond i don't think cops are ready for. we're going to find him we're going to jail i'm a lot of the ranks. this is the year we see pranksters in jail i sort of putting

pranksters in jail now the rest of the world's going to stop pranksters in jail the fiscal cliff is just more theater bankers and politicians trying to distract people from the underlying root catastrophe that is a bunch of bankers who are manipulating the system day in and day out the strong economy this fiscal cliff is just more wrong and more theater and it doesn't really focus on the true underlying problems and we're going to see more of this going forward in two thousand and thirteen anything good bye flecked attention from the mob with their pitchforks and their torches they were coming after these people they want to just delay that day of reckoning for many months if they can but that day is reckoning it twenty eight it's comic. thanks kinds of well there was one. europeans that their leaders might ease up on the cuts. all the government's listening well the truth is the government's counter for to

listen to one of our economic contributors says countries are still heading down the wrong path explains why shortly. it's been a tough twelve months for the world's top whistleblower to the son spent twenty twelve under house arrest and the remainder in the ecuadorian embassy in london correspondent sara firth has been following his ups and downs through the air. a lot of you say wiki leaks and julian started more in a year old t. the most media organizations have done decades we've really had a front seat view of everything that's been going on we had him of the beginning of the year the fighting that extradition to sweden we saw his the pill rejected we then saw that dramatic twist in the tell when he went into the i could do it embassy seeking asylum we've been learning julian assange certainly the british media we've seen a lot of the cold on him quite viciously especially during the course of this year we do these huge events happening surrounding julian assange

a lot of people who would put that done plain and simply to jealousy. last year was a success for barack obama he secured his second u.s. presidency when washington correspondent says he only succeeded in snatching victory from mitt romney but also votes from the food party candidates there were cheers of relief here when he won i would say because the alternative was thought to be so much worse many voted out of fear that romney could win for them he was another george w. bush so whether americans have fallen out of love with obama that two thousand and eight euphoria was gone that's for sure back then there were these crowds you know in the streets all across the country shedding tears of joy so bad in their view where eight years of bush presidency obama was greeted as the savior and then he went to save the banks save the auto industry something he took a special pride in during the election campaign but across the country people remained out of work and are still out of work so this time president obama ran

under the banner it could have been so much worse as you imagine it was not a banner for the national euphoria it was more like you have no choice but to choose me kind of something that shocked me as i was covering the election here it was it was the second debate between obama and romney i'm sure you remember you remember that as a presidential nominee from the green party jule styne was arrested right outside the venue where the debate was taking place he was protesting for exclusion from his age and nobody like no news channel period mentioned her arrest none and i was switching channels for hours to see if anything was said about that and it was nothing i can imagine what the reaction would be here in the states if a presidential candidate is the other big country was arrested in the media there wouldn't even mention it but apparently it happens in the u.s. no big deal president candidates get arrested all the time right well there was some irony in that yes anyway during the election campaign the mainstream media had

been focused on nothing else and no one else with these two candidates and we are t.v. as you remember of course zogby is saw an opportunity there to show what others don't and we hosted the debate. well the end of the year saw barack obama's victory overshadowed by the primary school shooting in connecticut where the president to pledge an end to the epidemic of gun violence tom hartman takes a look at whether the under the free is ready to loosen its grip on the right to carry a firearm. my guess is what we're going to see is cosmetic change we're going to see probably the or the assault weapons ban come back they'll be a fair number of loopholes in it but you know the u.s. is not going to end up going the way that's what's a longer israel of daughter many most european countries have done australia when john howard was president one thousand nine hundred eight when there was a mass slaughter and then they said ok that's it we're going to buy back all the guns and it's not going to happen here there's just too much money being made with

guns insane supreme court or at least five right wing crazies out of nine on the supreme court decided that even though the second amendment says in order to maintain a well regulated militia necessary for the security of a free state the right to you know you people have the right to own guns that's half of it the other half of it is that the supreme court also said that corporations interest groups lobbying groups billionaires can throw unlimited amounts of money at politicians. well that is so searching among the russian opposition that why the protest mood in the country lost steam in the past year with the minutes people have blown why few people took part in these twenty twelve plus he examines who the activists actually. will be a change of leadership in the role in the twenty thirty but want to mean for the west that's just ahead.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big show. today. these are the images. from the streets of canada. operation.

welcome back here with. russian politics or a kremlin return for that and fresh anti-government protests in twenty twelve numbers smaller than the year before political analysts watch developments in the heart of the rallies he told my colleagues in the way he sees the protests moving russia panning out. i would say it's kind of bleak but not hopeless ok we didn't come up with any new ideas new organization new faces and if pussy riot is that we are of the opposition that's pretty dreadful situation for the russian people and political development in general here and there was political change in this country in a positive change but who does make up the opposition as we have. it's

a very interesting question because i have gone to most of the major demonstrations and there were people there of goodwill in my opinion but then there were fascists there ok who were communists there and they were these are people they're ok and it's your right to demonstrate i for the actually i'd like for your ideas but they didn't accomplish anything but i could see they have no organization no unifying ideas except for i don't like by the mere putin which is not a very it's not a political agenda there were a few protests which i was out as well where it did seem like that was the method if you wanted to gain traction on this opposition movement do you see people coming out and take the train lost a lot of its novelty effect right now ok because political change takes years in years and years that have to be local this is what happens in political changes with countries that want to work tearing at one time it takes a long time to get people involved in the process and that is happening very very

strongly there are some people that want to really fast and they don't want to do it through elections they want power because they want power because they believe they deserve it and what about the fact that we're not going to see any presidential elections of course that all led up to being elected a third term this protester now when i'm down now what i would say to people i mean if you want to continue to protest fine but you know join a political party there are forty four of them now you have a choice ok get involved see one of the things that i saw with a lot of the protesters is that they want someone else to do all the hard work ok they want to go out and wave a flag and say you know give out a slogan we don't want to do the hard nitty gritty work of political change and that's what they need to do but peter has been desexing russian and global politics in his crosstalk series throughout the past twelve months and r.t. dot com has plenty of editions of a few to watch on the bot. iran chooses a new president in june. has served his maximum two terms and there is little clue

as to who will replace him to tackle the almost inexorable tension with the west over tehran's nuclear ambitions will journalists to action attend see who's often shared his insights on iran and r.t. doesn't expect the new leader to bend to foreign will i think whoever we people of iran elect policy foreign policy terms things are going to be much the same people are already talking about the mayor of tehran at the moment i would image of himself as normally in a job as the mayor of tehran the new mayor of tehran ghalibaf and people are talking about him. perhaps winning in june because it's too early and is notoriously difficult to predict iranian elections as to whether they will be as hardline and again the terms of the terminology of western corporate media on this or bizarre image of the islamic extremists in all sorts of different morning because the point is iran is there to stay in terms of forging

a very different type of developing nation economy because it has all that oil and has all those resources and it's not going to suddenly start changing things the way the i.m.f. or the way washington wants it to be. iran's nuclear plans on the power switch around to dominate the headlines later this year online that we've got more expect opinion on who to keep players and countries are likely to be shaping how the rest of the middle east fortunes will come out of iran to israel to the palestinians all that.

europeans have a year of fairly uncompromising cuts to contend with which already saw plenty of street protests in the past year or so sing their own debt and unemployment is one thing but investment advisor patrick young says none of it is enough to repair the country which remains the biggest headache. what's happened so far has been so when judging cuts on the masses and we really haven't managed to make the remotest impact upon the whole nation itself greece is still fundamentally in a huge problematic situation it does not remotely have a functioning government system that fiscally is going to manage to organize itself in any which way possible to manage to get through the continuing swen cuts that need to take place out of course then we're looking at the whole issue of the demonstrators are the governments listening well the truth is the government's counter ford to listen because what we're seeing within the european union even if

the euro has survived in iraq to last me for twelve months government has run out of money the european union's western socialist model of spending huge amounts of money borrowing even greater amounts of money and hoping to pay everything manyara or indeed thirty years from manion or simply does not work. and only three years ago arland was bankrupt and being bailed out to rescue its failed economy on top of that it's not the country's turn to take on the next six months presidency of the european council source with reports the celtic tiger has some hard graft ahead of it. it's all changed by the e.u. presidency as the takes over the six month rotating challenge on the first of january not the ovi a choice islands one of the guys in peg's the countries that have been least stable economies in europe and sure enough arlen's the first country to take on the

presidency of the twenty seven nation bloc while being propped up by e.u. and i.m.f. money so for the next six months the e.u. and systemic problems will be presided over by one of its weakest and most problematic members so what specific challenges does face in europe over the six months of its presidency first the european economy is slowing flaws and the crisis is nowhere near over secondly it must preside over leaders actually agreeing to an e.u. budget for the years two thousand and fourteen to two thousand and twenty something they've spectacularly failed to do so far and thirdly there's a problem coming from right here in london increasing british opposition to brussels and the threat to european cohesion that poses the irish government expects the e.u. presidency to coast in excess of seventy million euros money the country can ill

afford and what will it be spent on twenty four million on catering accommodation and transport for example and another twenty million extra government. will join us next time for expert opinion on how effective on and e.u. presidency can be with all the challenges little smith just outlined. the recent conflict in gaza isn't putting israel off planning even more settlements in the occupied palestinian territories despite saber rattling from harassment factor who are vying to rio man defend themselves one means the middle east reporter outlines how this might affect the region's future. if you look at what's happening on the ground israel continues to announce settlement construction and the palestinians continue to say that for as long as these announcements continue they will be no resumption of peace talks it wasn't so long ago that the palestinians were awarded upgraded status at the united nations but you cannot

detract from the fact that we still have palestinian faction groups hamas and fatah who always seem to be at each other's throats in less than a month the israelis will go to the polls and by all predict will be prime minister benjamin netanyahu for another term of office and it doesn't seem as if he has an olive branch so certainly the prognosis for any kind of peace moves is far let's hope that as tough as it will be the two sides will find a way to work together happy new year. but more world news for you this hour at least sixty people including children have been trampled to death at a stadium in the ivory coast two hundred more are reported injured the stampede happened as crowds gathered to watch the new year fireworks. and tens of thousands of people have marched for greater democracy and the resignation of hong kong's top political leader. has faced falling popularity and

a no confidence vote against him since he came to power six months ago he was elected by a beijing backed committee of twelve hundred people. but after the break we had twelve washington studios four capital accounts with host laura mr. invented by the famed soviet author peter is good for you is there of in the nineteen fifties these frames were initially used to treat fractures in deformities by cutting bones and slowly pulling them apart and therefore stimulating tissue regeneration it was out of was able to reshape arms and legs and people who thought they were crippled for life about a third of patients admittedly it was out of center now days seeking series three focus medical reasons most of them a man and most are not what you would call vertically challenged professor novick

of who operated on many of the answers it usually comes down to man's pride some of the first patients return to us with a leg length in the request was two meters fifteen centimeters tall to want to surgery because panos tool than him we like to say that we need to break their legs in order to fix their head like lengthening surgeries are banned in many countries and even the will out there pressure here but really expensive in russia the entire course costs eleven thousand dollars about one town of the similar package in the united states. financial considerations were one of the reasons that brought this washington state native to western siberia if his main motive for the surgery had to do with how he fared in the auditors in america advertised as one seventy five i was one sixty seven or one sixty eight and so one eight centimeters would have brought me right to average for women height isn't so important girl can be sure

it's not a big door to your guy it's like expect to be taller just before the operation most matter erosion girl who found he's a regional hype why didn't deering if he still want to have had the surgery adding seven more centimeters to the self-confidence she told me the whole time you're crazy you're normal you're perfect. so now or so they call you so what a compliment for somebody who's used to falling short of his own expectations. good afternoon welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. these are your headlines for once december nineteenth two thousand and twelve u.b.s. has settled over accusations of libel rigging as expected from reports we received

earlier this week but we now know colorful details about the traders call each other nicknames like superman and captain chaos which was spelled wrong by the way that's according to the wall street journal now we have no such color from the federal reserve and its manipulation of rates but that is no points against we'll talk to a former v.p. of public affairs at the federal reserve bank of cleveland about what is lost in fed speak plus the treasury department announced it plans to sell its entire stake in g.m. within fifteen months according to the new york times a reminder of the bailouts in two thousand and eight of course. but instead of government bailouts how about innovating out of a slowdown or changing your business model we'll talk to the c.e.o. of car to go to north america about dialers adventure in car sharing and from new revenue to no revenue c.b.s. reports instagram is looking for ways to generate some revenue through ads but it will not pimp out its users in ads in fact.